What is the transparency color for icons that will be used for sprites in combat and such? Usually in customizable RPGs it is either color 0,0,0 (total black) or 256, 256, 256 (total white) or "programmers purple" (equal parts red and blue with 0 green?).

Thanks for the reply. I was already familiar with the 'png' file extension thing and have already converted (through a batch conversion tool) a bunch of art files from other file types to '.png' files. I had also already downloaded the 'icons pack' you link to above (but did not realize this until I went to download from your link) but had not opened up the file.

But this does not seem to help me. It would seem that, opening the individual icons in Paint Shop Pro the transparency color is all white (even though in the 'preview' mode their backgrounds are all BLACK for the transparency) but then I opened up the "hero.png" icon which is all messed up. The background color/transparency is black with splotches of a blueish-grey color and the 'example frames' (for attack, walking and dying animations (which I know are not currently used) are barely discern-able (like drawings that were originally drawn with a white background/transparency color were then hurriedly converted to having a black background/transparency). I will try to post a screenshot of what I mean here but I may fail at this:

Never mind. could not post what I wanted to post as an attachment.

P.S. - I did manage to donate to the project and will try and encourage others to do the same at various forums I post at.

Sounds like the program you are using does not handle PNGs with transparency correctly. It may be reading it in as a RGB only and not accounting for the A value. I use GIMP which is free and is like Photoshop in many ways.

Thank you very much for the donation, that was very kind. Mostly, I have been trying to get the Android version of the engine and toolset up and running lately and converting the PC IB modules to Android as well. Getting close to having it ready as well.

I wanted to chime in here, because I also work a lot with Paint Shop Pro. Learning how to do transparencies through the Alpha channel and exporting as .png files was a breakthrough for me.

Like SkeleTony, I also found that after making tokens and icons with transparency, they would not open again in Paint Shop Pro without a black background. However, the assets function properly in IceBlink. It is definitely an issue with the Paint Shop program. I believe you might be able to open your created .png files in PhotoShop or Gimp.

Logged

"The curse is time, and the tragedy that we have not enough of it."~Charlotte, the Village ElderHearkenwold

Thanks for the replies fellows. I always avoided bothering with al[ha channels, layers etc. because the only graphics work I was doing was 2D, 256 colored tiles for games like Pirates of the Western Sea (www.proudft.com) and Helherron (Finnish Nahlakh-inspired CRPG) where all I had to do was to color all parts that were not the actual icon/sprite color 0,0,0 (as per the RGB value scale). Shadows were created by the game/program from the icons.

Guess I will have to learn about layers and alpha channels and such after all. *Sigh*